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These introduce the idea of a social picture of reasoning as a picture of an activity of living together that is obscured by trying to understand this activity from within a picture of reasoning as end-driven and calculative. It discusses five central features of the social picture of reasoning: that reasoning is (1) an activity that is (2) social, (3) ongoing and consists in (4) issuing invitations to others to (5) accept what we say as speaking for them as well. These features are contrasted with features of the standard picture of reason which (1) analyzes reasoning in terms of reason, (2)...

These introduce the idea of a social picture of reasoning as a picture of an activity of living together that is obscured by trying to understand this activity from within a picture of reasoning as end-driven and calculative. It discusses five central features of the social picture of reasoning: that reasoning is (1) an activity that is (2) social, (3) ongoing and consists in (4) issuing invitations to others to (5) accept what we say as speaking for them as well. These features are contrasted with features of the standard picture of reason which (1) analyzes reasoning in terms of reason, (2) does not make reason essentially social, (3) takes reasoning to be end-directed, (4) regards reasons as law-like and thus on the order of commands and (5) are concerned not with what we can say but what is the case. The chapter ends with a discussion of the methodology of the book and a plan of the rest of the book.